1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an issue system for writing issue data in IC cards (portable storage media), which incorporate, for example, a CPU, data memory, and the like. Such issue data may include information associated with an IC card issuer and personal information associated with each IC card holder.
2. Description of the Related Art
When a portable storage medium such as an IC card is to be issued, issue data stored in an issue data file is written in it by an issue system. An issue data file used in such an operation is designed such that issue data is not discriminated as common data or personal data, and common data is repeatedly stored in the issue data file for each individual person.
As described above, the issue data file used in issue processing is designed such that common data is repeatedly stored for each individual person without discriminating issue data as common data or personal data. For this reason, especially when a ratio of common data to the total issue data is significantly high, the content of the issue data file is needlessly increased, and the real storage free area of the issue data file is undesirably reduced.